"Translation: A Transdisciplinary Journal"

Thanks to Edwin Gentzler, the font of knowledge for all things translation, I just found out about a new journal called, simply, Translation.

With this publication, the editors present the new international peer-reviewed journal translation, which from January 2012 will be published twice a year. The journal—a collaborative initiative of the Nida School of Translation Studies—takes as its main mission the collection and representation of the ways in which translation as a fundamental element of culture transforms our contemporary world. Our ambition is to create a new forum for the discussion of translation, offering an open space for debate and reflection on what we call post-translation studies, moving beyond disciplinary boundaries towards wider transdisciplinary discourses on the translational nature of societies which are increasingly hybrid, diasporic, border-crossing, intercultural, multilingual, and global.

This publication suggests new routes for rethinking translation. Prominent scholars, representing different disciplines and areas of interest, have accepted our invitation to support our project and joined translation’s advisory board. We thank and acknowledge them by letting their words represent our initial steps. These texts, either written explicitly for this journal or taken from previously published writings, reflect suggestions, directions, and even programs for the journal’s future issues.

The physical layout, design and structure of the journal are rhizomatic patterns that also illustrate our approach for future issues of the journal, both on the content level and the formal level. The metaphor of the rhizome well describes the journal and its program as it seeks, in a transdisciplinary fashion, to create a new space for academic thinking and writing.

Translation is published both as print and electronically, with the two versions conceived together, in constant dialogue, stimulating reflection, discussion, and debate in an open intersemiotic space where all forms and channels of communication are welcome.

The inaugural issue looks pretty solid, with pieces by Kwame Anthony Appiah (who will actually be here at the University of Rochester later this week), Rosemary Arrojo, Lawrence Venuti, Emily Apter, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, David Damrosch, Suzanne Jill Levine, and many others.

Hopefully I’ll get my hands on a copy soon and can post about some of the actual contents . . .